Butterflies

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It's not too late to order for your Springtime wedding!!!

And that means now is the right time to start your Butterfly Garden to enjoy all season long! Read on below for some helpful guides to creating a successful garden of your own :)

Abutterfly garden is an easy way to both see more butterflies and to contribute towards their conservation, since many natural butterfly habitats have been lost to urbanization and other development. It is easy to increase the number and variety of butterflies in your yard. Simply grow the plants the caterpillars like to eat, and plants that adult butterflies feed on! Several books are available at your local bookstore with butterfly plant lists and garden plans. Plants with varying blooming cycles can be placed together to keep your garden full of activity throughout the growing season.

Butterfly gardens can be any size - a window box, part of your landscaped yard, or even a wild untended area on your property. When planning your butterfly garden, the following pointers will help. Learn the common butterfly species in your vicinity and include both their adult nectar plants and caterpillar food plants in the garden. Adult butterflies will visit for a longer period if they find plants to lay their eggs on. Patches of plants that flower at the same time are more attractive to butterflies than a single plant with a few flowers. If you can let your lawn include some dandelions and clovers, you will see even more butterflies. Try to avoid or minimize the use of insecticides and herbicides. Plant your flowers in sunny places and provide some rocks or stone walls where they can "bask" in the morning to warm up. Also provide a few sheltered areas, like shrubbery or brush piles to protect them from wind and rain, and provide caterpillars a nice place to pupate. Butterfly Houses have slots the ideal size for keeping birds out while giving butterflies protection from the wind and weather, and are beautiful garden decorations. By having a nectar source close by, butterflies may be more likely to visit your butterfly house and garden. Maintaining a damp, slightly salty area in the yard may also help attract groups of butterflies. You can prolong the butterfly's stay in your garden and draw in others by providing both the food and shelter they need.

Butterflies are easy and fun to watch, so make sure you also plan a good place to watch the butterflies visiting your butterfly gardens. They have many interesting behaviors you will want to observe. For example, after rain you might see them "puddling," or sucking fluids from wet soil to obtain water and salts. On cool sunny mornings, they may bask on a rock to warm their bodies before flight. Males can be territorial and chase other males away. Females often have elaborate routines for choosing where to lay their eggs. If during your observation you notice you are missing a species you'd really like to see, include its favorite plant in your butterfly gardens next year! By creating a butterfly garden, you will not only create a natural habitat for butterflies but also for birds and other wild animals, which contributes to preserving our natural heritage.

Butterfly Host Plants are important to add to your butterfly garden to provide a site for the butterfly to lay eggs and also food source for the emerging caterpillar. Be prepared for heavy munching on your host plants! Because tiny caterpillars cannot travel far to find their own food, the female butterfly locates and lays her eggs on only the type of plant that the caterpillar can use as food. Most species of caterpillars are particular about the type of plants they can eat. If the egg was not placed on the correct plant, the caterpillar hatching from that egg will not survive. Many gardeners do not like to see plants in their gardens that have been chewed on by bugs. To avoid this, you may want to locate your butterfly host plants in areas that are not highly visible, but still a short distance from the butterfly nectar plants. If you do not provide host plants, you will have fewer butterflies. Many native trees and other plants found in and around our yards are host plants for caterpillars. There are a variety of plants that can be included in a butterfly garden that are excellent host plants. CLICK TO SEE A LIST OF FAVORITE BUTTERFLY HOST PLANTS

Raising butterfly caterpillars by providing them with food and shelter until they transform into adults is both educational and enjoyable. Rearing them provides an opportunity for close observation of the life cycle of butterflies. Various butterfly rearing kits are available at butterfly-gifts.com
You can begin with eggs found on the butterfly food plant. Place the leaves with eggs on them into a large wide-mouth jar or other container with the food plant. You can also start with caterpillars rather than eggs, if you collect them from plant leaves or tree branches. Make sure you have adequate fresh food growing nearby for your hungry caterpillars! Punch small holes in the jar lid, or cover the top with a fine screen mesh held on with a rubber band. Keep a damp paper towel in the container. Frequently clean the cage of frass (droppings). Replace the food plants as necessary, when the leaves have been eaten or turn dry. As the newly hatched caterpillars grow, they will need plenty of food and space. Never place too many caterpillars in a single container. Put in some twigs for the caterpillars to climb on when they begin to pupate.

The transformation of a frequently ugly or bizarre caterpillar into an elegant butterfly - is truly one of the regularly performed miracles of Nature. Be sure to watch each stage of butterfly development carefully. You may observe how the egg changes color before hatching, how the caterpillar eats and moves, and how it changes features and perhaps color as it grows. Check on the pupa often so you can release the adult outside soon after it emerges.

If you prefer, you can buy butterfly kits to raise Painted Lady Butterflies from caterpillar to adult. Watch the caterpillar's transition as it matures, changes into a chrysalid, and finally emerges as a Painted Lady Butterfly! Painted Lady Butterflies are used in these kits because they can be released in any state in the Continental US. Also, an artificial diet comes with the caterpillars for them to completely develop on, where other types of butterflies need live food plants to complete their growth. Butterfly kits can be used to rear butterflies even as winter projects as they come with instructions how to feed adult butterflies without releasing them. Each kit includes a colorful habitat, free certificate for butterfly larvae with special food, feeding kit and complete instructions.

Creating a Butterfly Garden involves planning your garden to attract, retain, and encourage butterfly populations to visit. You should select a variety of nectar-producing plants with the goal of providing flowers in bloom throughout the season. This will encourage a continuous succession of new visitors to your butterfly garden. It is especially important to have flowers in mid to late summer, when most butterflies are active. Flowers with multiple florets that produce abundant nectar are ideal. Butterfly Bush and Butterfly Weed are some of the most popular flowers used by butterfly gardeners.

For best results, plant your butterfly garden in full sun and plant the tallest flowers behind the shorter ones--so you'll be able to see all the flowers and butterflies that appear in your garden. It's important to refrain from the use of chemical insecticides, which will kill the butterflies you attract.

CLICK TO SEE A LIST OF FAVORITE BUTTERFLY NECTAR PLANTS WITH PICTURES, that will bring enjoyment to both the gardener and the butterfly!

Butterflies belong to the insect order Lepidoptera. The word "Lepidoptera" is derived from a Greek word meaning "scale wing." The butterfly wing scales create the wonderful colors and patterns observed in butterfly wings. There are 165,000 species of Lepidoptera worldwide, but of those, only about 24,000 are butterflies! Butterflies range in size from a tiny 1/8 inch to a huge almost 12 inches. Most adult butterflies only live one or two weeks. Adult butterflies use flower nectar as a food source. To obtain nectar, a butterfly's mouth (proboscis) is a long tube it keeps rolled up until ready for use, and is then used as a straw. Butterflies can see red, green, and yellow.

The Butterfly Life Cycle
The transformation of the frequently ugly or bizarre caterpillar into an elegant butterfly - is truly one of the regularly performed miracles of Nature. All butterflies have "complete metamorphosis." To grow into an adult they go through 4 stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Each stage has a different goal - for instance, caterpillars need to eat a lot, and adults need to reproduce. Because the caterpillar and adult eat different kinds of food, this helps the butterflies to better survive. Depending on the species, the life cycle of a butterfly (one generation) may take anywhere from about one month to an entire year.

Migration of the Monarch Butterfly
Have you heard of migration of the Monarch butterfly? The monarch butterfly is one of the best known of all North American butterflies because they make annual migrations across America to avoid winter weather. In autumn, tens of millions of Monarch butterflies fly south and roost in huge numbers on trees in selected mountain areas of California and Mexico. Monarch butterflies will use the same trees year after year. The Monarch butterfly migrates for 2 reasons. They can not withstand freezing weather in the northern and central continental climates in the winter. Also, the larval food plants do not grow in their winter overwintering sites, so the spring generation must fly back north to regions where the plants are plentiful. Their journey can cover up to 2,000 miles before it ends! Would you like to help track monarch butterfly migrations? Visit Monarchwatch for lots of information on monarch butterfly migrations with a color map, and also visit the many websites listed below for tons of useful information on the migration of the Monarch butterfly.

Insects are popular among educators and home school families alike. It's fun to plan adventures in the backyard or at the local park to gather butterflies and ants for studying.

Note only some of the main points of interest for students:

Butterflies belong to the Lepidoptera (scaly wings in Greek) order. The name is given to them as to correctly classify them as they have large number of scales on their wings and bodies. These scales give them their signature tenderness and beauty.

Butterflies are absolutely wonderful creatures that can develop keen interest in children through their amazing life cycle. As per your requirement, we can provide you all kinds of butterfly kits and gift items. We also supply live ant kits that work very well for children.

Butterfly kits can be an enriching school project for your children or your class. It is a magnificent experience to watch the beautiful butterfly progress from a caterpillar. Watch them grow from caterpillar to chrysalis, and finally into a colorful butterfly. All will have a delightful experience watching them as they eat, crawl, spin silk and grow. The process takes around 3 weeks. The butterflies can then be released into the wild and eager learners can watch them in flight.

The butterfly kits from the Butterfly & Nature Gift Store include covered cups with caterpillars and their food, a butterfly habitat which can be reused, a butterfly feeder with a cotton wick and eye dropper, feeding solution with two packets of sugar and a mister. You only need to provide water to mix the sugar solution and sometimes small pieces of fruit, like banana or orange.

The caterpillars will need a bit of caring. In their natural habitats, they prefer mallow leaves and hollyhock plants, which can be added to the artificial habitat. The live butterfly kits provide them with a concentrated diet which is suitable for them. The habitat will also need to be cleaned the cup regularly, without shaking them. Caterpillars should be kept at room temperature and out of direct sunlight.

In about 5 to10 days, caterpillars will develop to chrysalis. 7 to 10 days after that, the butterfly will emerge. It is safe to release the butterflies when the outside temperature is at least 55 degrees Fahrenheit.

Butterfly kits allow children and adults to observe and learn about butterflies. The kits provided by the Butterfly & Nature Gift Store can be reused- simply order more caterpillars and food.

Butterfly & Nature Gift Store
Keeping this info in mind, the Butterfly & Nature Gift Store has come up with a special school-size butterfly kit which is specially designed for a class of 30 students. They provide 30 caterpillars, 30 small cups and lids, transfer brushes, filter papers, mister butterfly feeder and sugar, eye dropper, reusable 2-foot tall habitat, life cycle coloring page and easy instructions.

Ant kits are also available from Butterfly & Nature Gift Store. Students can observe and understand the behavior of ants while watching them as they make tunnels and chambers, and perform different jobs like digging and gathering food. Watch the ants maintain their environment, as they remove the dead ants from inside the tunnels. Enjoy this and many more activities while teaching children about these amazing creatures.

Butterfly and ant kits supply hours of fun, education and adventure. There are plenty of insect farms available from the Butterfly & Nature Gift Store. Kits are delivered in about 3 to 6 weeks. Order today for your home school and other teaching projects.

Learn more at: http://www.butterfly-gifts.com/live-butterfly-kits.html

Looking for a gift for a youngster or nature-lover? Consider giving gifts with an outdoor theme! Some great gift ideas for children are ones that spark the imagination and allow them to learn at the same time. They'll also learn responsibility along the way while they care for their live insect or aquatic pet. On the market today are several kits available that enable children to watch everything from butterflies, ladybugs, frogs and hermit crabs grow in their own little habitat. The kit is usually purchased from the store (minus the live creatures of course) and then you send away for the live animal, which will be sent to your home. Have a budding scientist in the family? A fun gift idea for either a boy or girl would be a bug viewer, a microscope, a crystal growing kit, or their very own set of binoculars. A volcano kit might be just the ticket for those who enjoy a big mess!

Gift ideas with a nature theme are much appreciated by adults too. Do you know anyone who enjoys butterflies? Gift them a butterfly house, feeder, a few butterfly garden seed packets and a butterfly-themed outdoor lantern. Perhaps there is someone in your family who would like to bring the outdoors inside. A great gift idea for them might be framed pictures of wildlife, framed (real) butterflies or dragonflies. Others might enjoy the gift of time in the way of a wall clock with a wildlife theme, such as birds or butterflies. Magnets in the shape of beetles or dragonflies are always in good taste and they even add beauty to the kitchen space. Bird houses, toad houses, squirrel feeders, and hummingbird feeders always please the recipient and can be used for several months a year in most places.

Is a loved one going to be married in upcoming warmer months? Give them a gift they won't soon forget and will more than likely be one of the most special and unique gifts they'll receive...the gift of a live butterfly release on their wedding day! Make sure to find a butterfly release specialist who has a good reputation. The bride and groom will always remember your memorable gift.

Give your loved ones a new perspective on how to spend their free time. What better gift could you give than the opportunity to learn something new by simply watching a butterfly emerge from a caterpillar, ants busily working on the farm, a frog growing from a tadpole or sea monkeys growing out of seemingly nothing? Think outside the box and come up with gift ideas that are memorable for the one to whom it is given.

Looking for a unique gift for the nature lovers on your list? Kids, adults, co-workers too?
This holiday season, celebrate our world by giving a memorable piece of mother nature to someone special. Perfect for any ages, butterfly art, insect kits, decorative items, plants, and animal homes are exceptional gift ideas. As an alternative to plastic gun-toting figures, boring neckties and never-worn sweaters, nature gifts can be a different, often interactive, educational, and thoughtful way to share the natural beauty.

Make a request in the Guestbook, and I will recommend a link for you :)

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Monarch Releases

Save the Butterflies - Visit Butterfly Houses

Butterflies are going to be extinct before we know it unless we do something about it. No, this isn't a save the whales campaign, though when the whales needed help humans came to the rescue. Now it's time to save the butterflies. The best way to save the butterflies is to build and maintain a butterfly house, garden or farm. The easiest way to help to save the butterflies, for those of you who cannot build a butterfly house, is to visit one.

A butterfly house, garden or farm is an enclosed butterfly habitat here hundreds of different butterfly species live and breed in a very natural, yet controlled environment. A butterfly house is very much an observatory, where you can walk into the butterfly habitat and interact with the butterflies. And they will interact with you, too, especially if you wear bright clothing and smell good (butterflies like floral perfumes). There is little difference between a butterfly house, garden or farm, other than a farm may be more interested in breeding the butterflies than the butterfly house or garden, so the farm may have more host plants than the others.

You will find two different "kinds" of plants in a butterfly house, nectar plants and host plants. Nectar plants and flowers are the kind that produce the nectar that butterflies like to eat. There are many, many varieties of nectar plants, and you will see most of them in a large butterfly house because different species of butterflies are partial to different nectar plants. Some of the nectar plants you may see in a butterfly house are butterfly bush, rose of Sharon, hawthorn, sunflowers, marigolds, and coneflowers. Of course, these are only a few of the many, many varieties of nectar plants and flowers that butterflies love.

Host plants are the plants that caterpillars eat, and so butterflies lay their eggs on them. Caterpillars are picky eaters and if they hatch on a plant that they don't like to eat, they won't eat it and they won't survive because they are unable to travel to another plant that they like better. It is important for a butterfly house to have a large variety of host plants for this reason. Some host plants include different varieties of milkweed, snapdragons, hackberry, fennel, clovers and alfalfa. There are several small and large trees that make wonderful host plants as well like willows, aspen, elm and cottonwood. You may see many of the smaller trees growing in a butterfly house.

Most butterfly houses, gardens and farms will charge a small fee or ask for a donation in order to walk through it or to take the guided tour. This fee or donation is to help the butterfly house with its butterfly conservation efforts. Dig deep and donate to save the butterflies, otherwise they may not be here for very much longer for us to enjoy.